The Story of King Arthur and his Knights by Howard Pyle (1903)

I hadn’t read this version of the Arthurian stories before. I found it surprisingly goofy and superficial, and for those reasons enjoyed it more than I expected. I doubt I’ll read it again, but I could recommend it without suggesting that it has much substance to it. I may try to read another of the four books that Pyle wrote on the court of King Arthur.

The Fast Runner (2002)

I hadn’t seen The Fast Runner before. As a timeless story of betrayal, revenge, etc., it didn’t interest me much, but as a snapshot of a wholly different culture, it was excellent. I could recommend it to some people on those terms, but probably wouldn’t watch it again anytime soon.

Tales by H.P. Lovecraft (collected 2005)

I had read only one story in this collection previously. Many of the stories were really fantastic in some excellent way, but they were also all very slow-moving and dull during the parts which weren’t fantastic. Lovecraft’s persistent racism was also off-putting. I would only recommend a few of the stories, but I will probably want to read several of them again eventually.

garden

I planted vegetables a few weeks ago. I don’t think I watered them enough, and they took longer to sprout than I expected. I was trying to use a pair of empty juice bottles (each 32 ounces) in place of a watering can, but even two trips from the sink to the garden with both bottles was clearly not enough water, and even just making two trips was more tedious than I liked.

From Hell (2001)

I had not seen the film From Hell before, although I had read the graphic novel which it was based on. I probably wouldn’t recommend the film to many people. The comic was far from perfect, but I would be more likely to read it again than to re-watch the film version.



weekend vacation

I was out of town with several friends this weekend. We stayed in a cabin a couple hours outside of the city, playing board games and so on. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and, unsurprisingly, was not excited to go back to work. I would like to start making plans to take more time off, but the decisions are difficult. There are several people that I’d like to visit, but I don’t have enough vacation time to do all the traveling that I would like.